The Order of the Serpent
by StellaBlue29
Summary: The Order of the Phoenix were not the only rebels working to undermine You-Know-Who and the Death Eaters. Some people preferred to operate even further behind the scenes, away from the fighting. This is the story of a group of former Slytherins who assisted in their own way, unnoticed except by those who needed help the most. (Sequel to 'The Brave at Heart', but can stand alone)
1. Horizons

**A/N: Well. Nearly four years after I finished writing The Brave at Heart, I've suddenly been inspired to write the sequel that's been floating around in my head ever since. Technically, it's more of an interim-fic, and takes place between the last actual chapter of TBAH and the epilogue: what happened between Hogwarts and Halloween 1981. If you haven't read TBAH, that's okay too – this story is intended to be able to stand on its own.**

 **Another motive I had to write this was that there are far too few stories out there that focus on female friendship, and not on a romance plot. So this is my attempt to fill a void.**

 **Whether you've followed these characters since the very beginning or this is your first introduction to them, I hope you enjoy the story.**

* * *

Chapter 1: Horizons

Amanda Macintosh sat behind the till of Gladrags Wizardwear, tapping her red fingernails on the oak countertop, her other hand absentmindedly twirling her short blonde hair around her fingers. It had been a slow day, a drastic change from the previous few weeks when Hogwarrts-bound students had been scrambling to get all the new robes and hats they needed for the start of their new year. It was September of 1978, and this was the first time in seven years when Amanda was no longer on the train to Hogwarts alongside her best friends.

She'd started work at the London Gladrags soon after leaving Hogwarts, her head full of so many dreams and plans that there almost wasn't enough room for all of them in there. It took a long time to work one's way up to seamstress and designer, and as a teenager fresh out of Hogwarts, Amanda had to start at the bottom in order to work her way up to what she wanted. But she was fine with the rather dull work of counting money for now; she had other dreams to focus on for the time being.

A bell tinkled, and off to the left of the counter, the door to the shop opened and let in a column of yellow September afternoon sunlight that illuminated all the floating fibres in the air, until a silhouette filled the doorway. "Excuse me, I'm looking for a set of dress robes that matches my eyes, has exactly seventy thousand stitches in it, shimmers when I move, and is also practical enough to wear to work."

"Matches your eyes? No one ever wears brown dress robes," Amanda quipped back, grinning at her best friend in the doorway. Melanie Hastings grinned too, and rushed over behind the counter to swoop in for a hug; Melanie's wild, curly brown hair got in Amanda's face.

"How are you doing, Mandy?" asked Melanie as she pulled away.

"Today was slow," Mandy responded. "That was a nice change though, after all the people running about yesterday doing their last-minute shopping, it was mad. Also you're not supposed to be behind the counter. I'm still trying to make a good impression here." She shooed Melanie around the counter until the wooden table was between them, Melanie on the customers' side. "There, now we look very businesslike."

"When are you off today?"

"About ten more minutes. Wait for me, eh?"

"Sure." Melanie idly browsed through the selections of dress robes, scarves, and jumpers, mostly just feeling the soft fabrics, while Mandy counted out the till. She brought a bag of golden Galleons and silver Sickles into the back room, where her supervisor and a coworker were gossiping and glancing up every now and then to monitor the needles sewing the robes.

"Still slow out there?" asked Mrs Goldstein. The purple robe nearest her kept moving while a needle trailing lavender thread bobbed in and out of the sleeve.

"Yeah. No one's come by in the past half hour. I closed up the till, since it's about time."

"Thanks, Mandy, have a good evening. See you tomorrow."

Mandy smiled and headed back out into the display room, where Melanie was examining tie-dye robes. "Ready?" she asked.

They walked out the door, turned right, and continued through the busy London streets. True, they could Apparate if they wanted, but it was only a few streets between Gladrags and the flat the two girls shared, and sometimes the walk was nice, especially when the weather was favourable like today.

"How was the first day of training?" Mandy asked.

Melanie had just begun a three-year training course in the Department of Mysteries as an Unspeakable. "I rode a dragon into outer space and discovered the origin of magic," she said. When Mandy turned to look at her sceptically, Melanie laughed. "You know I can't actually tell you a whole lot about it," she continued, "but today was just introductory stuff. A tour of the place, piles of parchmentwork, signing confidentiality agreements."

"Sounds riveting."

"Says the person who sold two dress robes today."

"Yes, yes. Want to grab takeaway for dinner or should we cook tonight?"

An hour later found the two girls at home in their small kitchen, Melanie checking on the rounds of aubergine roasting in the oven while Mandy directed a knife to slice tomatoes. "Did you ever get around to making those leaflets to distribute at work?" Melanie asked. "The ones about how to stay safe from Death Eaters? I didn't see any when I was there."

"Yes, actually, I did. But thanks for reminding me, I need to make more. That's why you didn't see any leaflets – they've been quite popular. Lots of people are interested in protecting themselves from dark spells."

"Has anyone asked you anything about them? Or do people just quietly collect a leaflet on the way out?"

"Some people ask," said Mandy. "Most are quiet about it, though. I mean, these days no one really knows who to trust, but I imagine it's especially scary for Muggle-borns now that they seem to be targeted by You-Know-Who. They don't know if they can trust me."

Melanie nodded, and sighed heavily. "I knew everything was going to change once we were out of Hogwarts, I guess I just… wasn't prepared for how different it really is. It's not like we have Death Eaters at our throats all the time, but you know what I mean – it's that sense of fear that just doesn't go away – fear of what could happen to ourselves or our loved ones. I felt like we were making a difference with our defence spell practise group, that last term at school. And now…" she trailed off.

"Yeah," said Mandy. She'd felt the same sense of helplessness, and hated it. She was doing her best to distribute knowledge about defence in her pamphlets at the counter in Gladrags, but it wasn't enough. What she wanted was to prevent what had happened to her family ever happening to anyone else; last year, her parents' house had been destroyed by Death Eaters for something her mum wrote in the _Daily Prophet_ , or maybe it also had to do with the fact that her dad was a Muggle. Luckily, they had both got away, and were missing for a few stressful weeks until they'd felt safe enough to contact Mandy again.

But other people had met similar fates and not been so lucky, she knew. Melanie hadn't been attacked personally, but she'd seen her family fall apart as they went from neutrality to settling on opposite sides of the building war. They'd stayed in touch via letters now and then, but Melanie hadn't been back to Liverpool to visit her parents in months. And there were others, people the girls had known at Hogwarts, who had had parents, siblings, or cousins die at the hands of Death Eaters. And it all only kept getting worse.

"What about the Order of the Phoenix?" Mandy asked after a silence. "Have you had any meetings yet?"

"We have," said Melanie. "Twice. Mostly it's just people reporting information they've gathered. But there are a few seasoned Aurors in the group, which is a bit intimidating, and the Order are planning an ambush of Death Eaters soon, and I'm not sure how I feel about participating in a big battle like that. You know Sirius and James, they always want to jump headfirst into any fight alongside the Aurors. But I'm terrified of fighting, with the stakes this high. I was there when Charlotte died, I saw it happen, and it could just have easily been me. Really it's just vengeance that keeps me going in the Order. Peter and I both kind of wonder what we're doing there at all, because we're scared and everyone else is so brave."

Charlotte had been the final part of their Slytherin trio at Hogwarts, a beloved friend, and her loss still hurt both Mandy and Melanie. Her death had spurred both girls to act, although in different ways; it had motivated Melanie to join the Order of the Phoenix and fight back, and Mandy wanted to run away and bring everyone she loved away from harm. It appeared that neither of them was really succeeding.

"Bravery doesn't mean you're not scared," Mandy said. "It means you act despite your fear. I think you are brave, for what it's worth."

"Thanks, I appreciate that," said Melanie, smiling.

There was a pause, and Mandy asked, "How long do you need to roast that aubergine? I'm hungry."

"You can't rush perfection," Melanie insisted loftily, and then laughed. Mandy threw the parsley stems at her.

"I heard from Nathan today," said Melanie.

Mandy's eyebrows shot up. "He wrote a letter? I thought he was trying to lay low and stay safe!" Melanie's brother had deserted from the Death Eaters last spring after a change of heart, vowing to leave Britain altogether and hide away out of You-Know-Who's reach, because if Nathan was found he would certainly be killed.

"Well, he signed the letter as 'Fiona', to keep himself untraceable if it was seen by the wrong eyes, but I recognised the handwriting. And he says he's safe. There's nothing else of substance in the letter, but it's a huge relief to know that he's alive and he's all right."

"Where do you think he is?"

"He doesn't say, obviously, but… if I had to guess, maybe Egypt? Our granddad on our mum's side grew up there, so I'm sure we still have some very distant Muggle relatives there, and maybe he's with them? I don't know. If not there, I wouldn't have the slightest idea."

"So he got out safe."

"Looks like it," said Melanie, then hastily added, "Touch wood." She rapped her knuckles on the wooden chopping board.

"That's really good to hear," said Mandy. She picked a cut piece of tomato off the chopping board and ate it.

There was another silence, while Melanie ate some of the tomato as well, and then Mandy spoke again. "Why do you think Muggle-borns aren't doing the same thing? Escaping, I mean. Every day it's a little less safe to be a Muggle-born in Britain – don't you think they would want to flee as well?"

"And leave their whole life and everything they've known here?" Melanie asked. "It'd be hard. People are probably just thinking it won't happen to them. Everyone always assumes that… until it does happen to them."

"I remember you used to say you wanted to leave and run away when we were out of Hogwarts."

Melanie smiled wryly. "Sometimes I still want to. But I made a promise to Charlotte, and to myself. Besides, how could I run and leave you behind?"

Mandy nodded. "We'll get through it, I know it."

"I want to believe that so much. You and your bloody optimism."

"If you believe it hard enough, then it's true," Mandy insisted.

"Tell that to my eight-year-old self who legitimately believed there were Crumple-Horned Snorkacks living in the attic of my house in Liverpool. Aubergine's done." Melanie withdrew the pan from the oven.

"Do you want to play Monopoly after dinner?" asked Mandy. The topic change was swift, but the war looming overhead was always there to talk about, and they couldn't live under its gloomy shadow forever. Even in the middle of war, life still went on, and some levity was necessary to balance out the rest.

"I never want to play Monopoly," said Melanie. "Chess?"

"Boring."

Melanie snorted. "How can you say chess is boring but you like Monopoly, which takes a day and a half to play?"

"Because I usually win Monopoly," said Mandy. "Okay, wait. How about we go into the Muggle part of town, find an arcade, and play pinball!"

"Play what?"

"Ooh, you'd love it. You press buttons and it lights up and everything. And we can work together against the machine or compete against each other. I discovered the game last week on a date with that Muggle, Eric, and even though I've since ditched the bloke, I'm glad that at least I got this out of it."

They both laughed. "Sure, I'm up for it," said Melanie. "Just don't ditch me after if I win."

"Never!" said Mandy. "…Meaning you'd never win."

Melanie threw a chunk of tomato at her.

* * *

 **Thanks for reading! And if you have a moment, please let me know what you think so far :)**


	2. Whispers

Chapter 2: Whispers

Mandy had Mondays and Tuesdays off work. Because the actual weekend days were busy for the shop, she worked Saturdays and Sundays, and instead got the following two days as her time off. She couldn't really complain; she had a job, after all, but for the past three weeks with Melanie now working a standard schedule in her traineeship at the Department of Mysteries, the girls' misaligned timetables didn't allow them as much time together as they'd have liked.

When Mandy had come home from work on Saturday evening, Melanie had already left to go to Sirius' flat for the night, and she wasn't back yet by the time Mandy had gone to work Sunday morning. So as Mandy dragged her feet up the steps to her flat Sunday evening after work, she was tired and looking forward to her weekend, as well as maybe a chance to see her flatmate again. And sure enough, when she walked into the flat, Melanie was there, enjoying the last few hours of her own weekend; the room swelled softly with the sound of slightly-off-key guitar chords and the aroma of Indian takeaway. Melanie was seated on the sofa, her guitar in her lap, and their black cat Lancelot attempting to squeeze between her and the guitar.

Lancelot had used to be Charlotte's. Back then, Mandy had nicknamed him Wilbur, from a Muggle book she'd loved as a child, after seeing how Charlotte doted on him. But that name had only been funny when Charlotte was still alive. Now he was just Lancelot, as Charlotte had originally called him.

"Hi," said Melanie, looking up with a smile, and setting the guitar on the floor. Lancelot entirely ignored Mandy's arrival and took over Melanie's vacated lap. Melanie added, "Welcome back. I saved you some food."

"Thanks!" Mandy kicked off her red platform shoes and headed to the kitchen, scooped the leftovers into a bowl – it looked like _chana masala_ – and then came back and joined Melanie on the sofa. "We should get a table," she said, holding her bowl of dinner in her lap.

"Yeah," Melanie agreed. "And chairs. If we ever have friends over, they'll probably want a place to sit that doesn't involve squeezing between us on the sofa." She laughed. "So I guess they have to sit on our laps."

"Or the floor," suggested Mandy.

Their flat was nothing spectacular, but Mandy loved it. Ever since they moved in two months ago, it had felt like home. They'd covered up the big dent in the living room wall with a Ziggy Stardust poster, and various blemishes or cracks on the other walls were obscured by a watercolour of Paris, posters of the Caerphilly and the Portree Quidditch teams, a big framed photograph of somewhere in the Swiss Alps. Mandy had contributed a bright yellow shaggy rug for the living room floor, and over on the worktop by the window, Melanie had placed a potted spider-plant, two cacti, and a lava lamp. But still, there was no table.

"What was the most exciting thing that happened at work today?" Melanie asked.

It took Mandy a minute to recall, but in the morning a man had come in looking for dress robes and spent so long there deciding that he'd actually had an owl stop by with a letter for him while he was there. She asked Melanie about her day, as well; Melanie had spent the morning doing a crossword puzzle with Sirius, and then returned home to do some reading about space and planets for work.

After Mandy had finished her dinner, she set the bowl on the floor by her feet, and Lancelot crept off Melanie's lap to sit on Mandy instead and knead her leg. They'd only been chatting for a few minutes when there came a cracking noise outside and then a knock on the door.

"I wonder who that is?" Mandy asked, standing up to get the door, and in the process evicting Lancelot from her lap. Lancelot dashed out of the room and into Mandy's bedroom, probably to curl up on her bed and leave black fur all over her pillow.

"We have _visitors?_ " Melanie asked. "But we still don't have chairs!"

Mandy opened the door to see two of her former Slytherin housemates: Hector Branstone and Russell Rabnott, who were also now flatmates together, way up in Hogsmeade.

"Russ! Hector!" Mandy greeted them, beaming. "Come on in!"

"It's good to see you two!" said Melanie, hugging both of them as they crossed the threshold into the flat.

"You as well," said Hector. "How are things?" The group of four meandered away from the door and further into the main room of the flat, starting to catch up on each other's lives, until Mandy realised she couldn't even invite their friends to sit.

The thought seemed to strike Melanie simultaneously. "Sorry, we still don't have anywhere to sit other than that small sofa," she said.

"What?" asked Russell in disbelief, looking around the room in vain.

"There's always the floor!" said Melanie.

"Last person to reach the sofa has to sit on the floor," said Hector, and charged at it. But he had been standing farthest from the sofa when he started, so the two girls got there first.

"The floor, or our laps," said Mandy as she settled on the sofa.

Hector wasted no time in climbing onto the sofa and stretching himself out along Mandy and Melanie's legs, his knees jabbing into Mandy's side, and Melanie's arm in his face. It looked very uncomfortable. Russell merely took his wand out of his sock and conjured a beanbag chair, and then reclined comfortably in it, a self-satisfied grin on his face.

"How did we never think of that?" cried Mandy, turning to look at Melanie over Hector's brown elbow in the air between them. "We never needed to buy any furniture at all! We could have all the furniture in the world and never have to pay for any of it."

"Conjured stuff doesn't last forever," Russell reminded her. "This one will probably have vanished again by tomorrow."

"Damn," said Melanie.

"Good," Mandy disagreed. "It doesn't match the rug."

"You know, we can still make it work," said Melanie. "The conjuring, I mean. Add it to the list of daily tasks; then we always have chairs. Morning to-do list: fix breakfast, conjure a table and chairs."

"My arm is asleep," said Hector, fidgeting and rolling over until Melanie shoved him off the sofa with a laugh.

"We'll shift over," Melanie added as Hector sat up again. "There can be room for three on the sofa if we get cosy and if you quit elbowing me in the face."

After they'd all resettled on the sofa while Russell stretched out even more luxuriously on his beanbag chair, Mandy asked, "So what brings you two here today?"

"Russ broke up with his boyfriend," Hector explained. "And the best thing after a breakup is to spend time with friends. Besides, Hogsmeade is tiny; it can get dull sometimes."

"Would you like to drown your sorrows in ice cream?" Mandy offered. "I always find it helps."

Russell smiled. "To be honest, I'm not that upset. Wouldn't say no to ice cream, though."

"I didn't even know you were seeing anyone," Mandy added while Russell got up to raid the freezer. "No one tells me anything anymore. I used to know everything about you at Hogwarts. It's not fair that we live so far apart now."

The four friends spent a while discussing what they'd all been up to since leaving Hogwarts in June; Melanie gave a vague overview of her training at the Department of Mysteries, Hector mentioned doing construction work in Hogsmeade, Russell pointed out that he rather liked working at Scrivenshaft's Quills because it was generally quiet and peaceful there, and Mandy talked briefly about fashion at Gladrags and then more about her recent project of distributing pamphlets about protection from Death Eaters.

"Speaking of which, did you see the Daily Prophet this morning?" Melanie asked, her eyebrows knitted.

"No," said Mandy; she'd been at work.

"Oh, I saw that," said Hector, frowning. "The bit about the Registry?"

Melanie nodded, and then explained to Mandy that there had been a notice in the _Daily Prophet_ for all Muggle-borns in Britain to submit their names for the Ministry's newly created Muggle-born Registry. There was to be another Registry for people of magical birth who had married Muggles.

"They say it's for 'census purposes'," Hector added, using air quotes.

"Why? What are they going to do with that information?" Mandy asked.

Russell spoke up. "Well, probably nothing good. The Ministry's going corrupt; people say there are Death Eaters infiltrating the higher offices, and they're all in the palm of the Dark Lord."

"So it'd mean that the information all goes to him," said Hector. "And that You-Know-Who has access to where all the Muggle-borns are, and who has married Muggles."

There was a silence while everyone considered the implications, but no one said it aloud. Mandy couldn't help thinking it though: it meant all of the people on the new registries would be a target. Once identified, it was easier for Death Eaters to go after them. And with the ever-increasing number of Muggle-born deaths she kept hearing about, it wasn't too difficult to associate that trend with the new registries.

"How can they let that happen to the Ministry?" Mandy finally asked, outraged. "Shouldn't someone be stopping You-Know-Who? Why isn't anyone _doing_ anything about it?"

"It's not that simple," said Melanie, picking at her fingernails. "Secrets are well kept there. I've been working at the Ministry for three weeks, albeit with a bunch of researchers in the basement, far removed from where they make the laws, but I never heard a word about this until the article today. And as for the Death Eaters there… not even the Order of the Phoenix knows who all of them are." Upon seeing Russell's blank stare and Hector's perplexed one, she explained further. "Dumbledore's group."

"That's a good point," said Russell. "Would _you_ really do anything about it, Mandy? If you worked there, would you raise your voice, despite maybe not knowing where your coworkers stand? Would you risk dying just so you can say a few words?"

Mandy liked to imagine that she would stand up boldly in front of everyone for what was right, but she didn't know if she would, especially if the consequences were likely to include death and didn't accomplish anything real. It was for this exact reason she'd declined to join the Order of the Phoenix. Maybe those at the Ministry who still resisted Voldemort were trying to do something about it in secret, but everyone just had to be careful about saying anything publicly.

It had been like that at Hogwarts. Two years ago, when they were just beginning their sixth year, Mandy could still remember, it was common in Slytherin House to avoid talking about the war much, or about Voldemort; no one wanted to find out any unpleasant truths about their friends and housemates, so it was all best kept to oneself. There were a few vocal ones who clearly admired Voldemort and as such gave the house a bad reputation among the other houses. Mostly, though, the Slytherins were ambivalent and neutral about the war. But times had changed; the reach of the war had extended, and forced more people to make a decision and choose a side, like Mandy and her three closest friends.

"Did you know the place was that corrupt when you applied for that internship?" Russell asked.

"No. But as it happens, I'm probably quite well placed," said Melanie. "As far as the Ministry goes, the Department of Mysteries is a very separate entity from the rest, and is basically left alone and forgotten about. But it's still part of the Ministry, which gives me access to information. I might hear things once in a while. Besides, a couple of other members of the Order are employed there as well."

Mandy thought back to the two new registries the Ministry hoped to compile. That latter one about magical-Muggle marriages particularly worried her; Mandy's own father was a Muggle, and her mother was a witch. Just what exactly did the Ministry plan to do with this information? Her parents had been targeted once already – would it happen again?

"We can't just be bystanders, though," said Mandy. "My parents will end up on that marriage registry; they'll be in danger again."

Hector nodded. "And my girlfriend is Muggle-born. She'll be on the other list. Do you think Death Eaters would come to Hogwarts for the Muggle-borns?"

"Well, they did try to get in last year," Melanie said. "But Hogwarts is still safer than out here, with all the security spells and with Dumbledore there all the time. And you can trust the professors. Althea should be okay there." But she didn't look entirely convinced. A year from now, Althea Seward would be out of Hogwarts and having to face all of this anyway.

Hector scratched his head. "What happens if no one puts their names on the registries? How will that registry sign-up be enforced anyway, without any names?"

"Well, the Death Eaters will probably try to scare people into it," Russell reasoned. "Or make people think they have no choice, like they're doing now with that newspaper announcement."

"I wish there was a way to remind people somehow that they still have a choice," said Mandy. "A way we could tell everyone to not sign up."

"A way that doesn't lead back to us," Russell added.

"We can send out a bunch of owls to drop parchment all over the country that says 'Don't sign up for the Ministry's bloody Registry'," Hector suggested.

"How would we keep all the Muggles from seeing that?" asked Melanie.

Over the next quarter of an hour they mused on various methods of message delivery, but kept running into the problem that it was near impossible to get a message out to every magical person in Britain without being noticed by Death Eaters or Muggles, especially when the identities of the Death Eaters were unknown.

"I'm going to suggest to Althea that she not sign up, at least," said Hector eventually. "If she hasn't thought of that already. And she'll tell her friends and housemates too, I'm sure. You could do the same with your family, Mandy."

Mandy nodded emphatically. "Yeah. I totally will."

"And while Hector's plotting with the Hufflepuffs at Hogwarts," said Melanie, "I guess I'll stealthily take down the corruption in the Ministry from within."

"Let me know if you want to look good while doing so," Mandy offered. "I'll give you a discount on Gladrags dress robes."

"Such go-getters, the lot of you," said Russell. "I'll just keep eating your food."

The rest of the evening was rather uneventful, and after a bit more of friendly, laid-back conversation, Hector and Russell Apparated back home, what with the prospect of work early Monday morning for everyone except Mandy. Russell took the tub of ice cream with him, although most of it had melted by that point anyway.

Melanie went off to the bathroom sink to brush her teeth, and Mandy stood by the kitchen worktop and started writing a letter to her parents, pleading them to ignore the registry summons. Surely her mum must have seen the article, because she worked for the _Daily Prophet_. Maybe she was already planning to discard it. But as Mandy figured, a letter couldn't hurt.

It was something; the people she cared about might be safe a little longer, but it still didn't feel like enough. Nothing ever felt like enough. Mandy had big dreams of making a difference, but how could a few eighteen-year-olds possibly make a difference for a whole country of people who needed it?

* * *

She heard back from her parents the following day.

 _Mandy,  
It's good to hear from you! I'm so glad to hear work is going well and that you're settling in to your new flat. I know you have today and tomorrow off, why don't you come visit? We'd love to see you.  
Love,  
Mum and Dad x_

It was rather odd they hadn't addressed the topic Mandy had written to them about, but she did have time for a visit. She waited until the evening when her parents were sure to be home from their jobs, and Apparated onto the doorstep.

Mandy and her parents sat in the kitchen, and her mum set out tea for the three of them. It was a pleasant, cheery enough visit, until Mandy's mum brought up the topic of the owl Mandy had sent the previous day.

"Thanks for coming here in person – there's a lot to talk about that we can't risk putting in a letter. Your owl looked like it'd been intercepted. All ruffled, and its note was unsealed."

"I'm sorry," said Mandy, shocked. "I understand why you didn't say much in your response. I'll be more careful. But what about the Registry? You saw that article, right?"

"I did see it," said her mum. "We've been giving it a lot of thought since yesterday. And I don't think the signup really matters. In fact, I suspect the Census Commission already know of everyone who belongs on the list – they're just testing us all to see who admits to it."

Mandy hadn't thought of that. "Then do you think it would be safer to ignore it, or to sign up?"

"We're still not sure," said her dad. He looked tired, and his hair had a bit more grey than it had a few months ago. Mandy always remembered him as being enthusiastic about magic and taking pride in his wife's ability, but these days, now that magic had shown its ugly side to him, he seemed to find it less appealing.

Her parents shared a glance, and then her mum added, "Don't trust anything in the _Daily Prophet_ these days, by the way. There's a lot they aren't printing – there have been a few Muggle-born deaths that have gone unreported. I was fired yesterday, as well, for attempting to publish those articles. I think the place may be under different management now."

"Death Eaters?"

Her mum nodded.

So even the newspaper was being controlled now. How was anyone ever supposed to know what was really going on, then? The _Daily Prophet_ had been the one source she trusted. What was there now?

"Now what?" was all she asked.

"Well, to begin with, I'm making dinner tonight if you want to stay around for it," her dad offered. "As for the rest, we're still figuring it out. I think we should limit communication to the regular post, though. And you and Melanie should get a telephone. Your Ministry's Census Commission won't be monitoring either of those."

"By 'regular post', he means the Muggle one," said Mandy's mum with a half smile. "It's slower, but much safer. The safest, of course, is meeting in person."

"That makes sense," said Mandy. "And I'd love to stay for dinner."

When she got back home that night, she wondered how to pass the information to Hector and Russell up in Hogsmeade. Muggle post didn't go there, because Muggles didn't even know the town existed. And would telephones even work there, with all that magic around?

She figured she'd get very good at Apparating long distances over the coming year, if nothing else.

* * *

 **Author's Note:  
Some disclaimers. The book Mandy refers to is ****_Charlotte's Web_** **, by E.B. White. Ziggy Stardust is a creation of David Bowie.  
And because I didn't mention it in the previous chapter notes: Everything you recognise in this story belongs to JKR. Only the plot and the original characters are mine.**


	3. Life During Wartime

A loud cracking sound not ten feet from Mandy made her jump, and the black nail varnish she'd been so carefully applying was now smeared all over her left thumb, not to mention on the floor as well.

"SIRIUS!" she cried, glaring up at the visitor, who had once again Apparated directly into the girls' living room. He was already dressed for James' Halloween party, very well costumed as a giant squid.

"Ugh, how many times?" asked Melanie, stepping out of her bedroom half dressed. "Doors exist for a reason." Despite her chiding tone, she was smiling.

"Waiting around outside front doors wastes valuable time that I could spend with you instead." Sirius grinned at Melanie, and she punched one of his squid arms. They both laughed, and Melanie returned to adjusting her silly tentacled hat. Not to be outdone by Sirius' array of arms and tentacles, Melanie was dressing as a Venomous Tentacula.

"We're going to be the best dancers at this party," Sirius told Melanie. "Put together, we have at least twenty arms."

"Except I never know what to do with my arms when I dance," said Melanie. "This will just magnify the problem, won't it?" She shrugged. "Well, the rest of my costume is in my room. I'll be ready in a second."

Melanie ducked back inside her room, and Sirius sat in one of the orange-and-fuchsia beanbags by the low trestle table in the living room – the furniture of the day, thanks to Melanie, but Mandy wasn't fond of them. It was fortunate they'd have vanished by tomorrow, and Mandy could conjure something more classy.

"You two ever going to get real furniture?" Sirius asked Mandy, looking down at the lurid paisley on which he was seated.

"Someday," said Mandy, "but this works for now, and is far cheaper. At least we _have_ furniture now. You do know that Melanie chose these, right? You narrowly avoided having this sort of decoration all over your own flat."

Sirius had asked Melanie to move in with him when they all left Hogwarts, but as Melanie had explained to Mandy later, although the prospect had been appealing, it was a big step, and she wasn't the type to leap headlong into something like that. So for now, the two girls lived together in their small, colourful flat, and Mandy loved that, even if it meant she had to put up with Sirius Apparating directly in whenever he felt like it and criticising their furniture.

Still seated on the other beanbag, Mandy opened her bottle of orange nail varnish, and started painting the remaining uncovered fingernails, so the finished look alternated a festive black and orange, and then accelerated the drying process with a quick spell. Her nails didn't really match the rest of her costume; Artemisia Lufkin, the first female Minister for Magic, was unlikely to have ever sported such flamboyant fingernails, but that detail was easy to overlook in favour of displaying the utmost Halloween spirit. Mandy tucked a few flyaway strands of short blonde hair under her grey wig, and surveyed her reflection in the mirror on the door of the bathroom. She was rather pleased with the way the costume had turned out.

"So, who are you meant to be?" Sirius asked, eyeing Mandy's styled grey wig and old-fashioned, high-collared emerald robes.

"I'm Artemisia Lufkin," said Mandy.

"Cool," said Sirius, and then frowned. "You better not issue any decrees or new laws this time," he warned. Mandy laughed. Sirius was likely remembering last year at Hogwarts when Mandy had dressed as Professor McGonagall and tried to give detentions to him and all his Gryffindor friends.

"Only if you deserve it," Mandy said airily.

"Ready!" said Melanie as she walked into the living room. "I had so much trouble getting all the arms to stay on."

"A Permanent Sticking Charm should do it," Sirius suggested unhelpfully.

"No," said Melanie. "You both ready to go?"

* * *

They arrived on James Potter's doorstep in Ipswich in a swirl of robes and tentacles. Sirius yawned while Melanie knocked on the door of number 3B; he had insisted they could just Apparate right in because James wouldn't mind, but Melanie insisted on politeness and tradition. Mandy just stood behind them and watched their bickering with amusement.

The door opened, releasing a rush of warm air that smelt of spiced pumpkin, and Lily Evans stood in the entrance, grinning. "Hi, welcome," she said. "Happy Halloween!" She stood aside, and Mandy, Melanie, and Sirius walked in. James appeared behind Lily, and only then could Mandy appreciate their costumes: James wore the striped tunic of Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle, from the popular comic, and Lily had dressed as Martin's nemesis, the villain Wanda the Wacky. She had curled her hair and put loads of spells in it to make it about twice its normal volume, and her black robes were covered in sequins. Mandy loved them.

"You two look great," Mandy enthused.

"Thanks!" James and Lily answered simultaneously, and then laughed about it. Lily continued, "Wait, Mandy, are you Artemisia Lufkin?"

Mandy grinned. "I knew you'd know," she said.

"Brilliant," Lily said appreciatively. "Well, I'm so glad you all could make it here today! There's butterbeer in the kitchen, pumpkin scones… someone's started a game of Apple Summoning with nonverbal spells, if you think you're up to it, but please make yourself at home!"

Mandy was happy to see that several of her friends from Hogwarts were there – at least, the Gryffindors from their year, and a couple of Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs. There were no other Slytherins besides herself and Melanie, but she hadn't really expected there to be.

Most of the noise in the room was coming from the back where people were Summoning apples out of a tub, and more often than not hitting themselves in the face with the apples, to the amusement of the onlookers. Melanie and Sirius walked off with James to join the group, and Mandy headed straight for the food in the kitchen, instantly striking up a conversation with some people she'd never met but had seen before at Hogwarts, and who happened to love scones as much as she did.

As the amount of available butterbeer and Firewhisky decreased, the amount of noise and laughter increased, and eventually Melanie and Jia (who was dressed as an Acromantula) reeled Mandy in to dance with them, despite that she didn't have near as many arms as the two of them.

"May I have this dance?" said a familiar voice behind Mandy, who turned around to see Lily Evans. Except it wasn't Lily; it was Remus Lupin disguised as Lily, auburn wig and all.

Mandy laughed as she turned to dance with him. "Remus, this is really quite convincing, it's kind of alarming. Have you managed to fool James yet?"

"No," said Remus. "Lily thought it was a hilarious costume idea, James not so much."

"I think it's great," said Mandy. "Where's Peter? I haven't seen him, but I thought for sure he'd be here."

"I'm not sure if his costume is the most obnoxious or the most brilliant. He's just… invisible."

"He's invisible?" Mandy repeated. "So… so that's who has been tapping me on the shoulder every five minutes? I thought someone was just really fast at getting out of the way when I turned around."

"That was me," confirmed Peter Pettigrew's head, which had just materialised out of nowhere. He must have just used James' Invisibility Cloak as his costume.

She continued dancing with Remus, while Peter's head floated around nearby and startled other dancing people. And then she flitted into another conversation elsewhere in the room. For Mandy, the party was like a leap back in time, to the Gryffindor common room parties back at Hogwarts (which she and Melanie had managed to sneak into on various occasions in their seventh year). The room echoed with laughter and joy, and the voices of so many friends; it had been months since she'd felt so light.

The crowd started to thin out after a few hours. Mandy walked through the kitchen to find James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter gathered at the worktop, laughing raucously, an open bottle of Firewhisky between them. The four of them had been inseparable since probably their first year at Hogwarts, so Mandy was unsurprised to see them sticking together like Spellotape. At the table, Carol Whitby, Caradoc Dearborn, and Maurice Zeller were partway through a game of Exploding Snap. In the living room, on the other hand, the party had calmed down somewhat. Someone had switched the wireless to a station broadcasting the music of the Leaping Toadstools, and Melanie, Lily, and Mary Macdonald were over in the corner, sitting on the floor and passing some sort of odd-smelling cigarette back and forth while deep in conversation. Mandy walked up and squeezed in between Melanie and Lily, and Lily handed the cigarette to her.

"Thanks," said Mandy, taking a drag and passing it on.

"Do you ever think about whether our lives are determined by fate or free will?" asked Lily, leaning against the pale sofa behind her. "And what brought the four of us right here, right now."

"Well, nothing else interesting is happening in the house," said Melanie, looking around. "The boys are reliving their golden years at Hogwarts, and over there at the table is the increasing possibility of spontaneous combustion. And you lot are my friends. That's what brought me here."

"But you mean, like, forces that govern our lives," said Mary, who had the joint at this point. "I've always thought it was down to just choices that we make. Everything that happens to us is a result of our own actions."

"So you think free will," said Lily.

"I agree," said Melanie. "I like to think we have the power to change things."

"I think we have that power too, but it's more than that," said Lily. "Some things happen that you'd never really choose or expect to happen, it's like it was always meant to happen. I suppose I see it as more of a combination between the two, but I'm more on the side of Fate."

Mandy could see the sense in both arguments; personally, she was inclined to believe in fate as well, because exercising her free will never seemed to change anything. After all, this war was still going on and Muggle-borns were still in danger and Mandy hadn't been able to do anything about it, and she said so.

Melanie scratched her head. "I took Divination for a few years at Hogwarts, but it always seemed so imprecise to me, just sort of guessing. There was a lot about fate, especially when we talked about prophecies. Would you consider a prophecy the same thing as fate? Because often they weren't true. What's real is your actions, what you _do_."

"Well what if a prophecy did come true?" asked Mandy. "What would have made that happen? Maybe your free will, or what you think is free will, is actually decided by fate."

"But what you're describing sounds a lot like… a divine plan or something, like the role of a god," said Mary. "To you, is fate a religious concept, or is it a separate thing?"

A sudden loud explosion from the table rent the air, making Melanie jump and Mandy spin her head around towards the source of the noise; she'd entirely forgotten about the card game happening over there, or really about anything else in the room aside from what was right in front of her. Caradoc was panicking over his singed eyebrows.

The girls all laughed, and Lily watched intently until the smoke cleared over the card game. "What were we talking about, again?" Mandy finally asked.

"I don't remember, but look at that spider on the wall."

Mandy turned to look at it – it was tiny, but it stood out, dark against the pale wall. She spent at least the following half hour watching it creep diagonally up towards the ceiling.

Some time later, when her mind was a bit less hazy, and Caradoc, Maurice, and Carol had already left, Melanie tapped Mandy on the shoulder and mentioned she might head home, and Mandy agreed it was about time for that. She didn't want to be the absolute last person who let the party; she'd leave that honour to Sirius, Remus, and Peter. Probably Peter, as he was currently passed out on a sofa.

Mandy and Melanie said their goodbyes and thanked James for hosting the party, and then headed out, walking down the steps from the flat to the pavement arm in arm. "Merlin, I have so much work to do tomorrow," Melanie lamented.

"Why are you thinking about that now?" Mandy asked. "Let the fun of a Halloween party soak in for just a little longer before you start being practical."

"Okay," said Melanie, and kicked a nearby pile of crunchy brown leaves at Mandy. At almost the same moment, a loud, terrified shout penetrated the night, and Melanie gripped Mandy's elbow. "You hear that?" she whispered, squinting off into the thick darkness.

"It's Halloween," said Mandy, trying to convince Melanie as much as she was trying to convince herself. "People are always scaring each other on Halloween."

"That didn't sound like kids holding up wandlight under their chins and pretending to be ghosts, it sounded like… I don't know. Something's not right. Let's Apparate out of here."

But then a loud rustling of leaves across the street drew their attention, and the voice was audible again. Mandy got her wand out of her pocket and looked silently at Melanie, who sighed and drew her wand out of her left sock. The girls performed two quick Disillusionment Charms, and then together they tiptoed as quietly as they could towards the source of the noise, hand in hand.

They stopped behind a tree at the side of the road, where Mandy could see and hear the commotion perfectly. A man lay on the ground, kicking his feet and trying to move his arms, which were bound behind him. Standing in front of him was someone in a blue cloak with the hood up, asking him just where he was going at this time of night with the large suitcase and the broom that lay at the base of a nearby tree. The man said nothing but continued to struggle against the spell that trapped his arms.

"You're being taken to the Census Commission for failure to respond lawfully," said the woman's brisk voice from within the hooded cloak.

"I was just out riding my broom!" the man protested. "You've got the wrong person!"

"No I haven't. You're Stanley Peakes."

"I – you have no right! No—"

" _Silencio_."

In the dark, Mandy could see Peakes still trying to shout, but no sound came out. The woman leant down to grab hold of him, and the two of them disappeared in a whirl of robes, the echo of a soft _crack_ in the air the only indication that they had been there at all.

Mandy heard Melanie's sharp intake of breath next to her, and then the air was once again still. "What's going to happen to that man?" Melanie whispered. "Should we have done something?"

"I don't know," Mandy breathed back. She was still too scared to move. "I don't know if our interference would have helped." At least that was what she wanted to tell herself. As terrified as she'd been, perhaps she and Melanie could have won against that hooded witch. And that was an even worse thought, because of the guilt that came with being a bystander. "Let's go home," she said, and Apparated. Melanie followed a second later.

Mandy tossed and turned most of the night, unable to forget what she'd seen. And not even the new day could let her start afresh as she'd wanted; an owl came with the newspaper in the morning, a headline of a front-page article staring out at her.

 _ **THE DAILY PROPHET**_ _  
Wednesday, 1st November 1978_

 _ **MUDBLOODS POSE THREAT TO STATUTE OF SECRECY**_

 _Yesterday night, three criminals were apprehended by the Ministry Census Commission for their failure to comply with the Registry Act. A Mudblood in Ipswich was caught attempting to escape on a broom, not only ignoring the lawful summons of the Commission, but also endangering our very society as a whole by potentially compromising the Statute of Secrecy. As well, a married Muggle and wizard in Reading tried to take an illegal Portkey out of the country. Both parties have been sent to Azkaban for their flouting of the laws._

Mandy felt ill. She should have done something before that man was captured, but by the time she and Melanie had noticed him, it was too late. Clearly, people were trying to get out; there had to be others. Maybe the others didn't have to meet the same fate as poor Stanley Peakes.

Was she fated to witness that kidnapping last night, and then the article first thing in the morning? Or was it free will sparking her to make a decision on the spot? Whatever it was, she knew right there and then that her role in the war would be to stop this sort of thing from happening before it ever happened: she was going to help Muggle-borns and others in danger escape from the war.

* * *

 **Disclaimer: The chapter title is from the song of the same name by the Talking Heads.**


End file.
